Items with tag “wireless”

April 08, 2012, 1:30PM

By Joseph P. Fuhr Jr. Consider this: Adults in wireless-only households rose from 9 percent in 2007 to 16.5 percent by June 2010. Consistent with this statistic, Pennsylvanians are embracing wireless technology and increasingly accessing the Internet via smartphones. The rapid adoption of wireless technology is enabling residents of the commonwealth to pursue job opportunities while also improving public safety,... Full story »

November 09, 2009, 10:26AM

From Merriam-Webster's: an-droid: noun. a mobile robot usually with a human form In the case of Google's Android operating system, the "robot" is morphing into lots of forms. First and foremost, as a mobile phone with now nearly a dozen implementations. And those phones are starting to win acclaim (and not only for the Motorola Droid). But that's not... Full story »

September 28, 2009, 12:25PM

My friend Mark Lowenstein, a longtime wireless industry analyst for Yankee Group and now for his own firm Mobile Ecosystem, wrote a great piece in his recent newsletter on how wireless is changing self-service. He has graciously allowed me to repost it here. The Evolution of Device-Based Self-Service With a challenging economy and continued high cost of handset subsidies,... Full story »

September 11, 2009, 6:55PM

The Dauphin County Commissioners approved the purchase of 15 additional wireless air cards for the Adult Probation office after a trial period with the air cards increased staff productivity. Mike Potteiger, director of Adult Probation, appeared before the commissioners to share the results of a productivity study among his field officers. About 20 air cards have been distributed to his... Full story »

August 07, 2009, 10:23AM

This was a million years ago in tech terms, but during the mid 1990's my friend Amy told me that she had given up AT&T long distance for Working Assets, a reseller. Why? I asked her. Cheaper? Its social mission? Amy told me this: "Working Assets was nice to me on the phone." Related post: Wireless companies are no longer... Full story »

August 07, 2009, 9:57AM

When I first went out on my own, my father-in-law, an attorney who had his own practice for many years, told me: "If you think you're in the consulting business, you're wrong. You're in the sales business." What that meant to me was, there are lots of consultants. If I can't articulate and communicate the value I bring, clients will... Full story »

August 06, 2009, 3:41PM

The dustup over Apple's disabling of the Google Voice app on the iPhone is getting interesting. According to David Pogue, Google is rewriting the Google Voice application so that it will run as an ordinary web page--but be accessed just like the iPhone's approved apps. Why does AT&T care? Because Google Voice (like many other, much smaller applications) attacks the... Full story »

July 27, 2009, 5:15PM

I posted earlier today on Sprint's progress in customer satisfaction. It's not all good news, though. Internet sage Doc Searls often posts on his experiences with suppliers (perhaps part of his work on Vendor Relationship Management), such as Apple and Cox Cable. Today, he wrote about Sprint and a $500 bill he got from them when he unwittingly exceeded his... Full story »

June 29, 2009, 4:11PM

I almost fell out of my chair when I read this today: Sony plans to set up a project team as early as July to develop a new product that combines functions of its portable game player and Sony Ericsson's mobile phones, the Nikkei [Business Daily] said. "As early as July"! If I have my calculations right, the iPhone has... Full story »

June 25, 2009, 10:57AM

Brian Dunn, the new CEO of Best Buy, announced yesterday, in an interview published in the Wall Street Journal, that the US' largest electronics retailer is seeking a 15% share of mobile activations, up from its current 3%, and will be opening 40 Best Buy Mobile stores in the US. Dunn said this is part of Best Buy's strategic focus... Full story »

June 18, 2009, 3:36PM

In the US wireless marketplace, carriers covet postpaid customers above all, as do their investors. Carriers have focused their businesses on a subscription model comprising subsidized handsets, locked phones and multi-year contracts. They use this approach to limit churn, keep ARPU high, and... well, because they've always done it. Prepaid started in the US as a way to serve... Full story »

April 16, 2009, 5:27PM

March 25, 2009, 8:45AM

Way back in the early oughts when we all thought MVNOs would change the wireless world here in the US, one question we faced was the sheer number of mobile phones people had. "Hey, 75% of people already have cellphones; how are new operators going to build scale when nearly everyone has a phone?" And the answer was plain to... Full story »

February 23, 2009, 9:20AM

The US MVNO market is the greatest missed opportunity I've seen in my wireless career, stretching back almost 20 years. Through carrier resistance and MVNO hubris, a business model that works very well in Europe and Asia has floundered here. Strong, focused MVNOs, which manage their costs and market excellently, improve services and value for wireless users in many places... Full story »

February 20, 2009, 8:07AM

What do you do if you're #3 in a market and falling? Jack Welch of GE would have said, "Get out." Sprint Nextel's management doesn't have that option at the moment, but their outlook appears dismal. According to an article by the New York Times' Jenna Wortham, they lost 1.3MM subscribers while their larger competitors, AT&T and Verizon, gained a... Full story »

February 02, 2009, 10:54AM

I'm working on a project to listen to telephone sales calls and help the client find patterns explaining why some calls end up in a sale and others don't. Each call is a story, complete with emotion, conflict, and turning points. Listening to dozens of these, pictures begin to emerge of how people buy, and how, even when they like... Full story »

May 30, 2007, 5:25PM

RF Central LLC, a Carlisle company that provides wireless and microwave technology services to the broadcast industry, has been acquired by The Vitec Group, a company based in the United Kingdom. The Vitec Group, in a statement posted on its Web site, said that the company has acquired RF Central and another company, Nucomm Inc., for a combined $73 million.... Full story »

April 18, 2007, 9:53AM

BlackBerry users should be back in business after an overnight outage knocked out e-mail access to millions. The Canadian company that provides e-mail service to the devices, Research in Motion Ltd., says most users should have no more trouble. it's still reviewing the cause for the problem began at 8 p.m. Tuesday. Get more information here. Full story »